Sri Lanka has been renowned for its top quality natural rubber products. Among the locally manufactured raw rubber types, ribbed smoked sheets (RSS) hold a significant position as it entails ca. 50% of total natural rubber production in island. With no sufficient information on effectiveness in the use of materials and finance and then environmental impacts of RSS manufacture, this study aimed at assessing RSS manufacturing process adopting Material flow analysis, Material flow cost accounting and environmental Life cycle assessment in three factories in view of providing effective suggestions for making the system to be more cost efficient and environmentally friendly. Results indicated that manufacture cost, financial loss and GHG emissions generated by processing 1 MT of RSS were LKR 104,004 ± 6,336, LKR 1,007 ± 44 and 38.0 ± 2.1 kg CO2e, respectively (mean ± standard error). As an improvement option, installing single-day smoke dryers was proposed. This option could reduce firewood consumption per 1 MT of RSS by ca. 30% resulting in 0.1% and 14% of reductions in manufacture cost and GHG emissions, respectively. Implications of these findings are also discussed.
Light weighting by material substitution is a key to reducing GHG emissions during vehicle operation. The GHG benefits are a salient factor in selecting lightweight materials for vehicles. Although the literature has performed lightweight material selections using GHG benefits under product- and fleet-based life-cycle inventory (LCI) analyses, recycling effects have therein been accounted for by arbitrarily selecting allocation methods for recycling, as the consensus on their selection is absent. Furthermore, studies have mistreated the temporal variations of the LCI parameters (the dynamic inventory (DI)), though that could be an important factor affecting the overall LCI results when allocation methods for recycling are in place. Therefore, to investigate their influence on greenhouse gas (GHG) benefit evaluations, an LCI case study was conducted, centered on aluminum- and magnesium-substituted internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) at the product- and fleet- levels. “CO2 savings” and the “CO2 payback time”, as well as four allocation methods for recycling, were considered to represent the GHG benefits and address the recycling effects, respectively. The dynamic inventory was based on the world average electricity grid mix change. The results indicate that changing the conditions of the DI and the allocation methods for recycling could alter the better performing material under fleet-based analyses. Therefore, we ascertained that the choice of the allocation method for recycling and conducting fleet-scale dynamic LCI analyses in the presence of the DI is pivotal for material selections.
Raw rubber production is the sole foundation for the rubber product industry, rendering raw rubber to manufacture essential commodities to mankind such as tires, condoms, surgical gloves, and so forth. Raw rubber production involves various stakeholders; however, literature focusing on the social impacts of raw rubber production and its supply chain has hereto been limited. Social life cycle assessment, a popular tool to assess the social impacts of a product or process and was deployed herein to assess the social profiles of three Sri Lankan raw rubber supply chains (crepe rubber, concentrated latex, and ribbed smoked sheets). The Social Hotspots Database v4 on Sima Pro v9.3 was used for the analysis. Results indicated that Governance and Labour rights & decent work had been affected in its supply chain of fertilizers due to Corruption and Freedom of association & collective bargaining issues, mainly in Belarus, and China. Proposed improvement options to address these touchpoints were found to be effective. For instance, if the importation of K-fertilizer shifted into low risk countries, overall social risks associated with Corruption and Freedom of association & collective bargaining in the supply chains could be reduced by ca. 36% and 25%, respectively. As a result, social risks in the aforesaid impact categories, i.e., Governance and Labor rights & decent work, were reduced by ca. 35-41% and ca. 17-20%, respectively. Such improvements may help positioning the Sri Lankan rubber industry in the sustainability-conscious-world rubber market. Further, the methodical hierarchy developed herein is suggested to adopt in any industry to measure social sustainability subjected to the relevant refinements to the supply chains.
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